Treasure Island

School Radio

Treasure Island

1. Jim Hawkins and The Admiral Benbow

Narrator: Ah, the beginning. A quiet English pub by the sea on a perfect, peaceful morning. The Admiral Benbow Inn looks out across the Bristol Channel. Jim Hawkins, twelve years old, all but runs it himself. His father’s died. His mother’s exhausted. Jim dreams of adventure, something to take him out of this dull workaday existence, when an old sailor, with a pigtail, a sabre cut on one cheek and a large mysterious sea-chest, comes looking for lodgings.

Billy Bones: ‘In the heart of the blue Caribbean...’

Jim: Good morning, sir.

Billy Bones: This be a handy cove. Much company, my young mate?

Jim: Company, sir? No. No, sir.

Billy Bones: Come here boy. Closer. D’you see this?

Jim: Yes, sir.

Billy Bones: There’s one of these every month for ye - if ye keep a weather-eye open for a sea-faring man with one leg. One leg - ya hear me?

Jim: One leg? I’ll keep a look out, sir.

Billy Bones: You call me cap’n. Hmm?

Jim: This way, captain.

Billy Bones: Now lend a hand with this here chest. I’m a plain man. Rum and bacon and eggs is what I want. Mainly rum. ‘Yo ho ho and up she rises, yo ho ho and up she rises...’

Narrator: So the mysterious sailor comes to stay. And Jim keeps his weather-eye open. The weeks pass, and then one day another stranger arrives, thin and tall, with his legs intact - but with fingers missing. The stranger’s name: Black Dog. Black Dog tells Jim he has come to see his old ship-mate Billy and talk square. But they’re not friends, it seems...

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Treasure Island

Black Dog: You’re a dead man walking!

Billy Bones: And you’re a scurvy dog! Away with ye!

Narrator: Black Dog limps away wounded. The Captain struggles to his feet. He has the look of a man who has much to fear. Next day another stranger turns up - a blind beggar. He slips into the inn, and presses a piece of paper into the captain’s hand.

Billy Bones: Agghh! Tis the Black Spot!

Jim: Captain?

Mother: Jim, Jim! What’s happening?

Narrator: But before Jim can find out more, the beggar’s gone - and the captain has fallen to the floor, stone cold dead. Turns out the captain - Billy Bones, his real name - is on the run from his old pirate crew. They’re after something. Something he’s hidden.

Mother: Oh Jim, we shouldn’t.

Jim: I’ve searched the room, nothing. Whatever they want must be in here.

Mother: Oh my! What a fine suit of clothes.

Jim: He would have smelled better if he’d worn them. He did have money!

Mother: Uh! Didn’t pay us a penny, mind. And me just lost your father.

Jim: Take the lot. Let’s be going!

Mother: I’ll have my dues and not a farthing over. Mmm, is that gold?

Narrator: As his mother tries to extract her rent from the bagful of doubloons, guineas and...

Mother: Pieces of eight! Very nice!

Narrator: ...Jim finds an old parchment. But before he can look at it, the pirates attack!